Sleepover Sleuths (Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew #1) by Caroline Keene Illustrated by Macky Pamintuan

Overview

Eight-year-old Nancy Drew has her first case to crack! Can you help?

Nancy and her two best friends, George and Bess, are so excited! They have been invited to Deirdre's sleepover party! There will be pizza, cake, and even a pajama fashion show. But the most exciting thing is that the party has a City Girls doll theme. All of the guests are bringing their dolls with them!

But then Deirdre's City Girls doll -- Hollywood Heather -- goes missing. Is her sleepover ruined? Or is there a detective in the room who can make sense of this mystery?

My thoughts:
I had no idea this series geared towards younger readers even existed until I saw it in the book order at the end of the school year.  Then when we went to Barnes and Noble to turn in the summer reading passports for a free book this was one of the choices.  We have two of the other books, but it seemed like a good idea to start at the beginning.  Nancy, Bess and George are 8-year-old friends who are good at solving mysteries and decide to become the Clue Crew.  Their first case is to find out what happened to a new doll at a sleepover party.

I grew up loving and looking forward to Nancy Drew books and Trixie Beldon. (I still have a box somewhere of all my old Trixie Beldon books that my mom held onto.  I am wondering if this is the summer to break them out or to wait.)  I love being able to share some of these with my own children and to find new books to read.  We discussed the clues as we were reading and made our own predictions of who could have taken the doll and why and how.  I was a bit worried that my son would balk at reading a book about girls, and initially he did, but he sat in the kitchen where he could still hear us and came back out when he was hooked.  I hate that it seems that girls can read books about either gender but that boys don't feel like they are allowed to read books about girls.

Details
•Pub. Date: May 2006
•Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
•Format: Paperback , 96pp
•Age Range: 6 to 9
•Series: Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew Series #1
•ISBN-13: 9781416912552

Sunset of the Sabertooth (Magic Tree House Series book #7) Mary Pope Osborne

Overview:
The magic tree house transports Jack and Annie on a mission to the Ice Age where they encounter Cro-Magnons, cave bears, sabertooth tigers, and woolly mammoths.

My thoughts:
I jumped ahead of myself yesterday, and reviewed out of order.  I hate when I do that.  This summer has been so busy that I haven't been spending much time on the computer and have fallen behind on reviews.  I haven't even finished a book or my own in over a week now.  Thinking back it has been close to two weeks since I finished one.  I knew getting HBO to watch True Blood was going to cut into my reading time!

Jack and Annie visit the tree house on their way home from swimming lessons only to be taken to the Ice Age.  My children love the Ice Age movies so I think that is how they were picturing the setting when we were listening.  Once again they are looking for something to free Morgan from a spell.

As on the other four adventures in this set of four (numbers 5-8 in the series) a mysterious person lends them help when they need it the most, but unlike the first four books it is not Morgan who is offering them this direct help. It was nice to read about the cold as it has been very hot here lately!

Details
•Pub. Date: April 1996
•Publisher: Random House Children's Books
•Format: Paperback , 68pp
•Age Range: 6 to 8
•Series: Magic Tree House Series #7
•ISBN-13: 9780679863731
•ISBN: 0679863737

Never Swipe a Bully's Bear (Roscoe Riley Rules Series #2) by Katharine Applegate Illustrated by Brain Biggs

Overview
Pig-napped!


When Roscoe's stuffed pig goes missing, he is convinced that Wyatt, the class bully, is responsible. When Roscoe finds out where Wyatt keeps his teddy bear, he decides to give that old bully a taste of his own medicine. That will fix everything. Won't it?

My thoughts:
A few weeks ago my children and I attended a local event with authors and illustrators from our general area.  We heard Brian Biggs speak and then got to meet him at his table and have him sign our books.  We heard and met some other authors too, we just haven't finished reading their books yet so those reviews are going to be coming up later this summer.

This one was signed to my youngest.  I think he was holding it at the event because it even seems to have some teeth marks on the bottom.  I would have thought he was old enough to know better but you just never know with kids!

Each book starts with Roscoe sitting in time out for some rule he has broken, he then commences to tell what he did and how he ended up in time out again.  This time he thinks that the class bully has taken his stuffed pig, Hamilton, so he takes that child's bear.  It is a chance for children to see the need to have all the facts before jumping to conclusions and to have empathy for one another. 

Applegate does a good job sprinkling humor throughout her book.  Every so often something would strike my children funny and they all laughed at the same time. 

Details
•Pub. Date: May 2008
•Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
•Format: Paperback , 96pp
•Age Range: 7 to 10
•Series: Roscoe Riley Rules Series #2
•ISBN-13: 9780061148835
•ISBN: 0061148830

Kids and Books

Tonight we gathered together a stack of books and sat on the couch to read before bed.  My youngest is 2 1/2 and doesn't always sit the whole time.  He got up and got his container of cars out and sat on the floor in front of us playing for a bit, then came back to listen some more, then went in the kitchen for a few minutes only to come back and add a book to the top of the stack.  The book he added was a car shaped notebook that was blank inside except for some orange scribbles.

 I told him,  "This is very nice book but there are no words to read."

He answered, "Yes there are."

I looked at it again and asked it the orange scribbles were works and he nodded.  Then I asked if he wrote the book and he said, "I write it."

So here I am looking at orange scribbles trying to figure out what he thought his book was about.  I figured cars since that was the shape of the book and his current favorite toy.  I asked him if he wanted to tell the story but he said, "No, you read it."

So, I made up a story about a red, white and blue car that celebrated the 4th of July with loud fireworks that made him cover his ears (just like my son) and who went to the drive-in movie theater to watch a movie( just like we did) and then saw a parade.  I love that he wants to write and that he understands that the words on the page are the story!

I don't think you can ever read too much to your children.  My older two made up a game yesterday that they call library.  They both have shelves of books in their rooms, but they can visit each other and borrow a book from the other person's library.  They then spent a long amount of time reading those books so they could return them to borrow new ones.

Midnight on the Moon by Mary Pope Osborne (Magic Tree House Book #8)

Overview:
The magic tree house takes Jack and Annie to a moon base in the future where they continue to search for the fourth thing they need to free their friend Morgan from the magician's spell.

My thoughts:
This time around Jack and Annie visit a moon base in the future.  They have the chance to experience lower gravity, wear space suits and go for a ride in a moon buggy.  This the their fourth adventure to find a special item to free Morgan from her spell.  Once again the item they need to find starts with the letter M.

Jack and Annie have to use the book provided in the tree house to figure out how to use the items on the moon.  This is the first time that the pair have traveled to the future rather than to the past.  I actually enjoy the visits to the past more because it is a good spring board to finding out more about a time period or a place, but I know the solar system is a popular subject.  My children have really enjoyed the work they've done with it at school.

This was the last book on this set of audio books so it is going to be a little bit until we get around to listening to the next set of eight.  My children read them to themselves all the time, I just thought it would be fun to listen together and answer any questions or have any conversations that would help them with their understanding.

Details
•Pub. Date: October 1996
•Publisher: Turtleback Books: A Division of Sanval
•Format: Library Binding , 70pp
•Age Range: 6 to 9
•Series: Magic Tree House Series #8
•ISBN-13: 9780613019095
•ISBN: 0613019091

Afternoon on the Amazon by Mary Pope Osborne (Magic Tree House Book #6)

Overview from Barnes and Noble:
Jack and Annie travel back in time to a South American rain forest in search of the elusive magician Morgan le Fay. Will they find a new clue to her whereabouts before they are trampled by stampeding killer ants?


Eight-year-old Jack, his seven-year-old sister, Annie, and Peanut the mouse ride in a tree house to the Amazon rain forests, where they encounter giant ants, flesh-eating piranhas, hungry crocodiles, and wild jaguars.

My thoughts:
For some reason this one has never been one of my favorites in the series. It has never really grabbed me.  I've read it multiple times and it fades from my memory so fast.  We listened to it a couple weeks ago in the car and looking back I can't recall very much from it.

There were a few things that stood out on reflection.   I like the way the layers in the rainforest are described and made real to the reader.  It was also the book where we remembered that each of the magic items the children need to find to release Morgan from her spell all start with the letter "M".

These stories are different to me this time around because my children are the ages of Jack and Annie so when they go on adventures I try to picture my children being able to do the tasks or make the leaps in reasoning, sometimes I can see them doing it and other times I can't.  Maybe it is because we have yet to have a summer day free from the two of them fighting over or about something.  Would siblings stop disagreeing long enough to be successful in these situations, or would my kids just sit there and fight all day.  I know it is fiction but this is what is going on for me as we listen and read, could seven and eight years olds really do this if they had too.

Details:
•Pub. Date: August 1995

•Publisher: Turtleback Books: A Division of Sanval
•Format: Library Binding , 67pp
•Age Range: 6 to 9
Series: Magic Tree House Series #6
•ISBN-13: 9780785799924
•ISBN: 0785799923

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

Overview from Barnes and Noble:
After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left. .


"How about a story? Spin us a yarn."



Instantly, Phoebe Winterbottom came to mind. "I could tell you an extensively strange story," I warned.


"Oh, good!" Gram said. "Delicious!"


And that is how I happened to tell them about Phoebe, her disappearing mother, and the lunatic.

As Sal entertains her grandparents with Phoebe's outrageous story, her own story begins to unfold—the story of a thirteen-year-old girl whose only wish is to be reunited with her missing mother.

In her own award-winning style, Sharon Creech intricately weaves together two tales, one funny, one bittersweet, to create a heartwarming, compelling, and utterly moving story of love, loss, and the complexity of human emotion.

My thoughts:
I read this book eight years ago for a college class.  It was a summer class and I only had a few days to read the book.  It has always bothered me that I missed something right from the start and I've been wanting to read it again for ages.  Last week the audio book was on the shelf at the library so I checked it out to listen to with my children.  In listening the second time I was able to see how I missed what I missed the first time and how some readers might not.  My son knew right away when I asked him, but his reason for knowing was how he interpreted something about the character that could have meant something else.

I hate to have spoilers when I am reading, which is why I haven't stated what I missed and was looking for in this second reading.  I do not want to be the person who spoiled a story for someone else.

I liked how this was a story within a story within a story.  There was the story about Sal and her father and mother, the story about Phoebe and her mother, father, sister and the lunatic, and there was the story about Sal and her grandparents and their trip to visit Sal's mother.  None of the storylines is told straight through, but they are all going on at the same time through Sal's memory and her present circumstances.  It also showed how everyone is not always as they seem, there are layers underneath that thye may be unable or unwilling to share with others, even those closest to them, out of fear.  How much of that holds true for all of us, fear can be a big motivator in avoiding dreams and hopes, but without taking a risk we miss out on so much.  At one point towards the end of the story Sal is wondering a lot of "what ifs" and comes to realize how if she is always looking backwards wondering how things might have been she will fail to move forward and experience life to the fullest.

Details
•Pub. Date: September 1996

•Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
•Format: Paperback , 288pp
•Age Range: 12 and up
•Series: HarperClassics
•ISBN-13: 9780064405171
•ISBN: 0064405176